David Walliams: ‘I did a lap dance for Simon Cowell’

New ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ judge David Walliams tells James Rampton about
flirting with Mr Nasty.

David Walliams, one of the new judges on Britain's Got Talent.

By James Rampton

7:30AM GMT 23 Mar 2012

A curious relationship seems to be developing between Simon Cowell, the creator of Britain’s Got Talent – which begins a new series tonight on ITV1 – and the new male recruit to his show’s judging panel, comedian David Walliams. You could even call it a bromance. “I have been flirting with Simon a lot,” says Walliams, “I even did a lap dance for him. I think he likes the attention.”

However, he adds, “I know that Simon has the final edit, so who knows if anything I say will end up on screen. Perhaps I won’t even be in it – I’ll be CGI’d out of it! They probably only recruited me because they had a sign saying ‘David’ lying around from David Hasselhoff in the last series.”

Despite being one of the most successful comedians in the country, thanks to the huge success of Little Britain, Walliams retains the quality we Britons prize above all others: self-deprecation. In his recent BBC One documentary about his heroic 140-mile swim along the length of the Thames for Sport Relief, for example, he dismissed himself as “an overweight transvestite comedian”.

But he’s just as adept at sending up others. He has clearly spent a lot of his time on the Britain’s Got Talent set ribbing Cowell. “Every king needs a court jester,” he says. “And it’s been great because no one has done that [to Cowell] before. It’s been a gift.”

Walliams says he’s also been enjoying working alongside the show’s other judges, Amanda Holden and fellow newcomer Alesha Dixon. “What I love is that both girls have strong opinions and won’t be told what to think or say,” he says. “All four of us judges really get on. We have to spend 10 hours a day on camera – if you didn’t get on with people, that would soon show.”

Walliams admits to being a long-standing fan of the show. He previously turned down an offer to be a judge because he couldn’t face the idea of buzzing inadequate acts offstage. But the persistence of Cowell, an old friend, finally won him over. “I like acts that are genre-defying,” he says. “One night, a girl came on with a guitar and then turned into a contortionist.

“Some of the acts are so great, I want to join in with them,” he continues. “We had one group called the Show Bears. They were five guys in sparkly sailor suits who sang their own version of It’s Raining Men. The idea was to take the campest song of all time and make it even camper. I ended up on stage doing dance moves with them. It was only the second day of auditions, and I thought, ‘I’ve found my spiritual home!’”

As a judge, Walliams says he will not be falling for the temptation to become a new Mr Nasty. He aims, he says, to keep his criticisms constructive. “You don’t want to be unpleasant, but you still need to give people pointers.” The problem, though, is that some acts are sorely self-deluded. “You have to have a dream that suits you,” he says. “If I decided to dance Giselle with the Royal Ballet, it would be a deluded dream. I have phoned to ask them, but they told me they didn’t have a tutu in my size. I said, ‘I’ll bring my own’, but the line went dead.”